Natchez, Mississippi

Natchez, Mississippi, the county seat of Adams County, celebrated its 300th birthday in 2016. Located along the Mississippi River, Natchez is the southern terminus of the Natchez Trace Parkway.

Natchez was founded by French colonists in 1716. The city is famous in American history for its role in the development of the Old Southwest, particularly with respect to its location on the Mississippi River.

Natchez is well-known for the numerous antebellum mansions and estates built by its early 19th-century planter society, many of whom owned plantations in Louisiana but chose to locate their homes on the higher ground in Mississippi. Prior to the American Civil War, Natchez had the most millionaires per capita of any city in the United States, making it arguably the wealthiest city in the nation at the time. It was frequented by notables such as Aaron Burr, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor and Jefferson Davis.

Natchez

Mississippi

Today the city boasts that it has more antebellum homes than anywhere else in the United States, partly due to the fact that during the Civil War Natchez was spared the destruction of many other Southern cities. The population of Natchez was 15,269 in 2014.